Jim Meirose
Always You Know I Think the Same
(Fragment of the WIP novel “Dans l'odeur de la sainteté”)
I think the same always you know. Always you know I think the same. Nora stood at the window overlooking the driveway. A half hour ago she’d got off the phone with Harry and he must be halfway here by now. The space past the glass hung in the air hollow; the ground beneath the window began the space; every boxbottom steel drum barrel bottom car floorboard and even the space in her hollow house began with some real thing at the bottom to stand on and look over the space all around from the safe solid vantage point mortal sentient creatures are saddled with the reality of the fact being they need safety it’s an addiction of a kind it’s monkeys on their collective backs to need safety; an opioid; the need after need for one place to stand after the other; just because something’s not made by human chemists and labeled and proclaimed to be a drug doesn’t mean it’s not a drug. How pompous of any breed of living things cursed with the ability to accept input process the input and shit from their gross bottomholes their news and views of what they think of and know about and consider to be true of every real and unreal poor passing prey they trap-snag and convert by some chew of which there are many kinds also into their input big gaping superwide strongly toothed hoppermaws. But that aside having got her daily fix of the get up wake up know who and where you are and if you are safe or not and the calculated probability of surviving yet another day and the final rush of having the memory of processing through all this logic only to immediately forget she needed to be provided all this data input to unscramble and reset her downinside blockchains to be able to validly begin her day in a safe and totally resynchronized with the really real all around herself environmental surfaces on all sides, she washed dressed brushed coffeed and breakfasted and called up Harry to ask him to come to her because she needed to spew some meaning into her emptiness of any knowledge of if Mousie, who had been injured and hospitalized and from a no news is good news perspective is probably fine because it is the tendency of her breed’s collegiate male offspring to only call home if they want or need something or are in some trouble of one kind or another and also it is the societal tendency of her breed to not unnecessarily nag the offspring as that will be resented and in about fifty percent of such cases this will only drive a fat wedge between the two of them and that is the last thing they want, whew, so; the shortest way for them to get the opioid fix that will fill the hollow of not knowing what’s going on they will call some handy ear of a person who will listen to them and, if properly provided with good data input, will offer comfort in some way in return; so as Nora pressed her widespread unmanicured fingertips on the sill, she thought through the glass the list of questions she would run by Harry when he arrived, that he will not have any way of knowing the answers to but in this situation a friendly nod smile and acknowledgement that the questions are indeed valid and she is not a worrysore of a warty nutcase for wondering the fuck what’s going on and for being mildly annoyed by the fact Mouse is not communicating even though she knows in the hindmost of her whirling brainfissures that young men of that age do not put keeping Mom in the loop of all rolling life-things they are about atop their lists of things to do today. She pressed her fingers harder pressure in the body the stretch of muscles the rush of blood to that area provides a drug rush that of course only a crazy one with black rotted front teeth would call so that helped her through waiting. The cool glass she could not possibly know for sure is cool having not touched it since the last Windexing rubjob last spring, but which she believes so because it’s habit to believe, which is why and how she holds about three-quarters of her beliefs, the last quarter listing such low-bodied things as what is the consistency and healthfulness of her last hot waste dumpmass, the color and quantity of her last bladderspewing drainout session, and has her foodbag been provided with sufficient filler to avoid the distraction of rising hunger which again we must realize is conceptually no different from the rising shaky sicknesses of hunger for the next heroin-fix of some backalley trashcanned lowlife of a junkie? All hollows strive to be filled what? All hallows strive to be; no hollows not hallows Father Greene. All hollows strive to be filled. No hollow people dogs cats bears no hollow living creatures of any kind but; strive to be hollow because full is not comfortable but just as the whatever or another is expelled being hollow becomes uncomfortable and the striving gathering plotting and scheming to refill begins until the hollow is refilled with whatsomething anysomething that’s always off center in one direction or the other causing the race to strive for hollowness again what? This is how it is for on average the first several score times until; what. Yes. The ship at dock unloads and loads. Not knowing is an emptyhold of a hollow. Neither good nor bad betweenwhich is nothing of a kind. Nothings are the empty space in cups pots and bottles and boxes and. Nothing forever and don’t care not only by virtue of the ability to be emptied refilled emptied and refilled forever. After calving the cow womb’s an empty humid stinking slimy useless void of a pitch-black scary assed place to be. A place to never be a place to be or whatever that thank God, shrinks back away until next use, if any. Harry must be on his way now you know. Nora bit her lip as the thought momentarily blurred over her gaze that settled on the empty house across the wide field of wild yellow grass in the space between but there he is. Third Saturday of every spring summer fall month at this time of morning Harry must be on his way now you know. Does he rush when he’s on his way? But wait there he is. Why would he rush or not rush or whatever? The same answer might explain how long a pet owner walks a dog. Here he comes now is that, yes is. What causes the dog to experience a leisurely walk with time to nose every blade pole pebble hydrant as long as it takes and to stop squat or lift to do the nasties as many times as is needed on one day and to be virtually dragged from one signpost dog dating marker or angry my territory and this and this too unable to savor yah savor sweet savor; as a dog should be allowed to do? As a dog. Should be allowed. To do. Yes that is him he’s there turning in two tone shining down sun cartop stylistically glittery glinting says yes that’s Harry and he’s coming in. Nora pulled out of herself back into the actual house and went to the door, stood there, smoothed down her housedress, and tensed for the knock. It is wise to be ready for each thing that happens. A nearly infinite uncountable number of things happen during a life and as each one passes after having been fumbled through mishandled reacted to inappropriately back toward the immature phase of living the knowledge gets cemented that when full blown is stated as it is wise to be ready for each thing that happens. Nora stood there and as usual years passed as he pulled up out there cut the engine out there got out the car out there shut the door pocketed the keys she smoothed and smoothed and smoothed again her housedress no less than once per each passing aeon of a century eh yeh; footsteps on gravel footsteps up my walk creaksteps up my porch yes so near yet so far my childhood neighbor of a first crushyfriend swatted three great big green summerflies in some gone August and then snap-bang they had all become Maggoty and Maggoted, Legal Counsellors, Esquire. Wow what a big, big, turn! Plus; what is the definition of a Roman Catholic bishop was a valid question also all at once, but—why that question huh oh seeped into her face from that doorcrack in the dark there that so what it’s in shadow stare long enough and there’s toetips tapping the outside shiny brass doorbottom kickplate, well, sure, kick sure why not, after all, that’s what the fuck they put it there for—and solid knuckle-knocks start out there past Nora’s big face—one and two and three and on four, always on four not three or five but four, hurry up open, here; here—Hello, Harry. Thanks for coming. I put you out so—you probably hate me by now I am always—after this I will not call anymore, I won’t. No I won’t, I swear I won’t I am such a bother—
Hi, Nora—no no no, don’t think that. Don’t stop calling. It’s a pleasure to come visit. And also for your information, a Roman Catholic bishop is an ordained, consecrated, or appointed member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Got that?
Why—why did you say all that, Harry?
Say what? I said it is a pleasure to come visit.
No, I mean the other thing—about the bishop.
Bishop? What bishop?
—what fucking bishop but how did he fucking know—at times of boredom when the science game is slow do they ask these questions that have no answers yes yes yes—
Oh, never mind. Let us just carry on. I need to ask you your opinion about another problem with Mousie.
I thought he got over that knock on the head—what’s the problem? Are there complications? What, Nora.
It’s that I have not heard from him at all since we talked on the phone the day after he went to the hospital. I called the hospital and they said he was discharged. They wouldn’t tell me any details. I don’t think that’s right, I mean, I’m his Mother. But they wouldn’t budge a nut.
—Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban—
Did you try calling the college? They should know right?
They don’t know. They said they knew he had an accident but as far as they knew, he was back going to school—but again, they wouldn’t tell me more. Wouldn’t even look into it and get back to me. Wouldn’t even—
—break down the name break it down break—in French the meaning of that bishop’s first name, Louis, is famous warrior, from the old German name Chlodovech—
—give me the number of his dorm, no nothing no not nothing! How can they be this way, Harry? Isn’t it totally wrong? They are ice-cold as dead people!
—the next name, Pierre, originally means rock or stone in French—
Nora, come over here. Let’s sit at that table. I am sure there’s nothing wrong. If you’re hearing nothing he’s probably just busy. He’s facing that math final you know.
Oh, Harry, that’s true. Yeah—he’s probably focusing everything he’s got on studying for that. He’s probably still scared to death he’ll fail. You know.
That may be true Nora. That’s probably it. Plus, bad news gets around fast. News that things are normal again in any case are not seen as critical to get around quickly—
You know where he gets that need to ignore everything else to be able to do one thing well?
Where.
From Stannie. He was like that. Stannie even admitted that was true. He told me that when he was a boy it was cars. He was crazy over cars and nothing else mattered. He didn’t even sleep or eat when he was into tinkering with a car. He used to tell me he had the fastest car on the boulevard for a couple of months. He built the car up from a wreck with the other guy he called hemi-man Puskas. They worked like mad and nobody would take them on in a race while they had that car—but the damned thing got stolen in Newark NJ while he and hemi-man were chugging down beers with some gang of greasers parting about a good day at the track and he came out and the fucker was gone—
Nora, you never talk like that. Hey.
What do you mean.
The f-word. I don’t think I ever heard you use that.
Me? I didn’t use it—that’s exactly the words Stannie used when he told me. I mean I wanted to tell you an exact story don’t you want exact stories from people who are telling you about things they know about that went on way back?
Oh, yeah, sure, Nora—I meant nothing, no, it’s just that—
No no no, Harry—you don’t need to explain I know where you’re at. You’re just like everybody else; it’s just that you want the story to be made tamer than it was. Because you want the story twisted up all polite like people do. You don’t want to see how hard the world really is. You want that all filtered out you just want everything all pretty pretty and mild. Because you’re no different than anybody else in this shit world who can’t take honesty because honesty is so rare and unusual today it’s mistaken for crudeness or rudeness or whatever hey yeah that what is that the problem hey? The real world is rude and crude! You just don’t want to admit that eh? Glenn Gould said of this variation, It’s the most severe and rigorous and beautiful canon— the most severe and beautiful that I know!
Nora—
You know Harry I can tell you what I think of what I said because we are close, so here’s rest—I mean the dam in my is busted I been to wild inside Harry wild inside yeah wild—here it is I think this makes sense that it’s why I reacted the way I did—when quoting someone you’re supposed to quote them exactly word-for word. You know why there’s confusion and misunderstanding in the world Harry? I know you want to know so you don’t need to answer I’ll swing right into the applicable natural law that is, summarizing or paraphrasing twists dilutes changes a stated truth—it is even true Harry that the tower of Babel legend in the Bible was not that there was confusion of languages at all, but that the people building the tower started summarizing and paraphrasing and even deliberately for their own selfish reasons, twisted their explanations of things that they heard stated to say things not in accurate ways at all but dropped whole statements and inserted faked statement designed to further their own personal agendas, as; hey there man, hand me that hammer over there, hey, man, the guy other side of me wants that mallet there, hey, man, that guy two guys over wants to start stealing wallets there, hey, man, call the cops there’s a pickpocketing ring just formed and those three guys other side of me are the freak frack flucking founders, and, Harry, hey, that’s even how the f-word got created want be to explain that one to you I would if I could but since I wasn’t there to hear the exact words I’ll have to design build tests debug and deploy the first known time machine in creation to go back so I can be there and hear the exact words and then zip back to you and quote to you exactly what they done said saying stated hey—ya ya the case drew enormous attention from the whole of France, and Catherine was supported by parliamentarians, noblewomen, and the public in Toulon and Aix ya ya—
—Nora poor Nora—she is slipping so, I’m glad I came, it’s almost like I am not here but if I was not here she’d just have it all bottled up but now it comes like a word-spew of word-pus some kind of virtual cyst or worse on her brain inside it’s a good thing she’s getting it out the pressure on the brain from letting it expand in her bony headpart is that the brain would get squeezed out but no it can’t get out so it would die; like some martyr being pressed to death in the medium ages hey no maybe even as far back as the middle ages but not as far back as the low ages or the no ages yet at all but hey stifle yourself let her talk you popped her safety button and here come a major perhaps week-long spew as bad as two buckets of juice from a stomach-punch into a dying elderly miniature donkey so cold they pulled socks over her ears hey—
—plus, the definition of the French word de is of or from. Now, what the hell is that doing in a name? Here’s the name; Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban; it posted somehow into my head from regions beyond like so much shit-frick does. He was a prime player in the Cadiere affair. For some reason it’s in my head that I know all about this; I know all about what happened in the year eighteen fifty-two. I don’t know how I do but I do. I know Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban’s name and I cannot deal with that in the dead center or maybe a little off to the side to be very exact—remember I said that when quoting someone you’re supposed to quote them exactly word-for word? Well though I am not quoting now, which I did not think through before recalling you back to what I said, which is an example of non-deliberate introduction of devious intent, which because I was not careful to think through my next move, has altered the future from you believing I am wise to you believing I’m a lying bitch—this is why the Tower of Babel project was abandoned as described in the thousands of embarrassingly amateurish videos on the topic posted over BlueTube across the worldwide overnet; or the uppernet inside the metube or wherever they stuff all this kind of long loud pap; what was I saying oh yes, Stannie; I suppose I should not be upset that Mousie’s not communicative at this very time he must know I am worried to death because that’s just how Stannie may he rest in peace always was, or; no I think it also had something to do with the clinker they dropped in Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban’s name—
—apparently Nora never opens her mail, thought Harry, upon idly noticing as she continued draining her pressure out her face, that his hand rested on a pile of envelopes of assorted color size consistency and odor. Washed in her mouthflow he escaped to reality by idly paging through the pile and reading here and there the snippets of sound that poked at him through the spaces between her alphabetical string-artifacts with meanings attached but not at the same time somehow magically hey otherwise commonly considered by mere mortals to be words. Narrowly avoiding papercut after papercut, he longnailed the things open and read erratically throughout her big salad of a bombardment.
—Brand new from Beverage-Spawned Vanitybooks for only ten and change—confessions of a Dresden-bound bombdropper—the hair of the juice, baby, is all that lets me go through with the deliberately blasting away of so so many—
—during his twenties and thirties, Harry—by the way I think that’s when you started draining us of mass quantities of watergallons to wash one jalopy your bachelorhood allowed you to sport the necessary money to be able to buy one new boat after the other in exactly two-year increments—
—available everywhere including at your neighborhood Brain & Nuggets—
—during that time Stannie got tugged over into believing that if he stayed at work longer than anybody else turned more wrenches than anyone else became expert on the entrails of more trucks tractors cars and Mariah Careys that found there way in range of his gleaming red and chrome-trimmed maxi-toolbox, he would rise in the ranks of the greasemen over greasemen until he reached the top without more than a few hundred slipbacks all easily recovered from and acquire the relatively meaningless to anyone outside the county garage crew title of, Top Scraper of Stinking Sludge-Masses—
—hey that sounds good I’m into war books might buy that sure lay it aside what’s next—hey here; Wrapper-Wound faux-tinfoil company touts new winter heating costs reduction breakthrough—whirly roundy circular brass horny-noisy sounding something—
—that was when we had Mousie. At the time I thought it was a happy time, but I think looking back that was when Mousie first started to develop problems in his head, hey it might sound harsh to put it that way but, isn’t it true that everything is in your head after all, there might not even be a reality at all we might all be fools stumbling around in some noplace not dark and not bright all fooled into thinking we’re real but, I get a little scared when I think Harry that maybe if I start to think these things one day I’ll wake up fully knowing its true and reality will fall away like some flimsy wrapper of a worn-out bathrobe and I’ll realize we all have been dead all along just fooled and laughed at and made small of and danced around like foolish puppets at the whim of the likes of Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban and his henchmen and their myriad ilk—
—for years farmers watchmen first responders and dentists have known that the best way to fight hypothermia is to wrapper ‘em in one of dem dere tinfoil looking creepywrappers used at night all over France when some mass this or that occurs, otherwise known to be calling herselves generically in other kingdoms old world and new et cetera, all cross the industry, space blankets—
—they were not fool enough to think they were alive. No. And, actually, that is not as depressing as it sounds because it simply means, the word alive has no meaning. No meaning no. The Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban simply swapped out the alive sign hung off the side of the phenomenon in question with an Armorica sign; yes. We are all Armorica until we die; and that word can be swapped for another as, the sign die hung off that particular shred of verbegitation is swapped for a hastily blue Bic-penned simpleword, mainly, not—yea yeah so on Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban’s distant as hell plane, everyone’s Armorica until they not. Pretty devilish, eh? Yah we ‘tink so too—
—as a matter of fact, our product has been used to protect battlefield combatants—you got to admit that to be used for such suchlike our product must be at keelbottom and lowerdown, pretty fucking robust—the Taliban namely. You know the Taliban. They wrap themselves in our product at night to hide their heat signature from NATO forces who desire to heat-seek them directly into the arms of their imaginary heavenly virginal lie of a waitstaff—
—then for a while as Stannie rose in garage seniority, he thought that it would poke a large scale featherclump out his scalpcover if he would be able to mystify incoming apprentice tooltwisters with a display of the type of ability, which, when transferred to other occupations, would manifest itself in such ways as in a Robert Fischer keeping twenty boards going simultaneously defeating twenty opponents, and not a single one of them a slouch, in the tiny movable sometimes ivory carved tiny-statues game-space otherwise known around here as chess, or in a funny-dressed southerly loud quick but always by rote woodenslab electrified baby-faced stringplayer playing in just as fleet-blastingly loud of a manner behind his head and back as before his eyes in a manner that even drew hundreds to pay sacks over sacks of dollars to watch, or in the leader of a white gowned high paid supereducated medi-clanging clan in some clinically sterilized hot lit space named after what’s done in it, which leader cuts into one knocked-out sickly human after the other with the support of his gang, slowly and methodically wounding each victim so badly, but in a very perverse and precisely calculated manner, that it takes months sometimes years of lingering pain for the victim to recover, if they ever do at all. This slashing and piercing and flaying and worse is done using this blade, that drill and those saws, each tool designed to inflict a very particular type of injury, all wild assed, yes yes, with the leader every minute shouting orders to the fast-moving greased-up underlings orders like, scalpel! Forceps! But, not really quite in those merely generic terms, but in an exotic manner calling out for the Hartmann Mosquito Forceps, three and one-half inch, or the Miller-Senn Retractor Double End Sharp, six inch, or that supertall and quite sharp sterilehuman slouching there named Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban, or simply sprinkly-man poop-massman combination spreader-cutter, size large, there—how ‘bout it? Do it faster or become an immediate unemployment statistic! Hey—thus sprak Gelf, also, the supposed Indian-born Manx talking mongoose, hot ticket of the thirties—
—a length of that silver stuff would come in handy but slip the ad aside there’s a fat blue pack of something very attractive a thickly stuffed-out envelope containing many things pulls the hand must find out that there’s many things in and of itself means nothing but if there’s many of something worth plenty each then the whole pack of them accordions widely way out in value; oh yah got to rip it out oh yah now now now got to see what it is; yah yah almighty God, it’s something rare; so rare it scalds the hand and drops away and repeats this ten times until its ratchet at last catches its nutty-top-bracket and zip zap it falls in a free coasterslide rush-slip of a super-loud Mister-Bach classic-style canon at the fifth in two quarter time just like variation twelve that slip-slid black-ice style before all in contrary motion with the leader appearing inverted in the second bar but not thank God for long enough to suffer the inevitable excruciatingly horrid heart-popping death—which is a death so moving, so anguished—and so uplifting at the same time—that it would not be in any way out of place in the St. Matthew’s Passion—
—Stannie thought it was super impressive that the leader of the white coated slice-‘em-up gang would bark order after order for this or that fantastically-named tool, as, not to yell out simply, Give me the scissors, but, Five-inch Ragnells, please! Or, not just simply, Give me a knife, but, Number fifteen sharp, please! Quickly, nurse! Do you not have a degree? Huh—yes yes, that type of snotty remark, too—Stannie wanted to do the same so he remembered something from when he was an oily little snip—he told me how he’d be bellied down like a baby under one of his cross-the-street neighbor Mister Superior’s jalopymobiles with the very master mechanic himself and the great man’s son Sonny, and the master mechanic twisted a bolt, snapped off the socket and rolled it to Sonny, barked out three quarter socket and Sonny reached over the tooltray and dropped the last one where it belonged and gripped up the next one without needing to look because there was a place for everything and everything was always in its place—the repetition of this scenario hundreds of thousands of times through his boyhood impressed with the need to sometimes be quite anal—and Sonny drifted the necessary socket to the master who palmed it and snapped it onto the ratchet and spun it and used it again without looking, and then; the entire sequence repeated itself with the only variable being the specific tool being called for each time until the work on that specific point under the jalopymobile was complete. Mechano-mania, stemming originally way back from the date the first Hawaiian cavalry was organized, was the Front Driver’s rust bucket for all this fast beaching, but, the Superiors being pure artists of the Craftsman breaker bar, they did not dwell there but as always pushed out from under Sonny gripped up the tooltray and followed the master to the next point of work. Each job, Stannie learned, was composed of a series of definite points of work chained together the winding of the chain over under around and through the spaces and nooks and crannies of the particular jalopymobile was followed by the Superiors until the vehicle was completely repaired. Then it would be slid out of the garage bay the operating room doors opened automatically the vehicle was stable enough now to be sent home with medication or as was most likely held for the days required for the inflammation to fade the pain to decrease the necessary walks down the hall and back dragging the IV the roll around the block the door cracked open the assigned nurselike repair-tester listening for any knocks roars cracks creaks painful moans unexpected slowdowns and in rare cases the collapse of the jalopymobile required it to be pushed back to the garagebay but this was very rare as proven by the statistics that show less than half a percent of the vehicles, jalopymobile, as described in the Army parts stack catalog, a house-sized and thusly unused and ridiculous document until some clone woke up with the bright idea to chop it up into no less than a couple hundred thousand individual volumes each no more than three tons in tare weight this rating clearly marked on each spine as required by the United States Forest Service which at the end of the day is the buck-stops-here point answerable for the amount of trees harvested per annum—and because of this Stannie toyed with the sub-momentary idea of possibly pursuing a government career as a Ranger with a really neat hat, issued free; but the hat fetish only plagued him for a moment or two in passing squelched incrementally by the distraction of each new belly down under another of Mister Superior’s jalopymobiles with the very master mechanic himself and the great man’s son Sonny and the immediately female tug into the same comforting calming anal-space again and again until guess what finally broke that off hey Harry guess what finally broke off Stannie’s infatuation with hearing orders a’barking again and again three quarter inch knucklebuster big fat electrical drill number fifteen European style crow’s foot and metric ton estimator and twelve great big flying machines higher than thirty thousand feet leveled off you may undo your seat belts and move around the cabin freely while the flight attendants prepare the mid-day complimentary traditional dish of assorted universal sautéed nuts and bolts the traditional delicacy when crossing the equator from north to south for the first time like somebody really gives a crankshaft spin or two or three if you ever really crossed it before, as a matter of fact there’s no formal record of who crossed the equator when where what and how—do you want to know what soured Stannie boy on the sweet decalced Superiors? Hey? Pay attention Harry the only reason you are here is because I needed a warm place to put this nearly obscenely super long emotionally taxing narrative thread that’s been building up clogging me clogging yes clogging in me since Mousie hit his head my boy you know Mousie hit his head my boy? Well. My my my, my. It is indeed a very small world—anyway, all that gas aside; do you think no news is good news and I should assume Mousie is fine? Or should I not.
No! What you should assume is that this is the first of the three variations in G minor, and its melancholic mood contrasts sharply with the playfulness of the previous variation.
What? Wait a minute, that’s got nothing to do with Mousie. This is not a joke don’t joke I know you’re known for your jokes as every bachelor who knows that’s it for the other one won’t ever happen, you’re such jokesters such jokes I know you didn’t mean it—
Oh, sure I did and it is no joke—even such a precious luminary as Pianist Angel-Scruff Neckbrace herself, notes that there’s a wonderful effect at the very end of this variation. The hands move away from each other, with the right suspended in mid-air on an open fifth.
All right, Harry, hear me hear me good. Say you’re sorry.
No, I am not—face it Nora, face it for once; know that this gradual fade, leaving us in awe but ready for more, is a fitting end to the first half of the piece.
All right you bastard; I will just talk over you to wrap this shit-bag up for a safe tossaway acceptable to be part of the regular Monday morning trashheave, Stannie finally broke with the Superiors when on the same magical day that an original condition nineteen fifty Studebreaker crunchy-coupe special showed up parked at the edge of their sandy claypit of a mudyard, that same magical day that Mister Superior officially crossed over to the demented other side of this life, clicked lit his firetorch, and hissed it over and around and through the nearly rare vehicle and turned it by means of the scalding hot cutting summer’s day blowout method, to a pile of slipping and sliding dangerous to stand on small steel sheets; and that was the end of that phase of the life of Jackbootean John ValJean, quarter brother of Julius Richard Petri, German bacteriologist of nowhere near the same name. Original sin and all the rest of that old school legend, then propelled Stannie to the highest level watermarker above Jack Bruce level local big fish in small pond fame and he was just starting to consider joining the professional garage mechanic’s nationwide master of twist-socketry tour similar in philosophy to Bassmasters and such but much much more difficult because on the PGM circuit you need to bring to the massly populated with screaming obsessives stadium a tank of still living but doomed impressively sized Studebakers whereas in Bassmaster is just a cooler of still living but doomed slippery slick but too bushed to writhe-too-much bassfishes. Similar in concept to Chinese stadium mass execution spectacles entertaining robed Chinese roman types hungry all hungry for Christian blood bone and gorybits all flying big quick lion-wisely yup, but a few dozen Chinese drug dealers extortionists Bitcoin fruadsters Nipponese Ramen-style boilable as well as broiler ready ponzigeeks, and a few cash-only Italian suitmakers thrown in to provide the necessary crunch to the screaming horde’s palate. Anyway, Stannie was level in the head through his thirties and most of his forties until wham, bam, thank you Ma’am, the sax in him outsprang nearly butterflying his rib bones, and pushed him face down in his breakfastly branbowl that morning and that was the day the trap door vacuumed normal Stannie away into the mystery space and the Stannie new took its place and my house, yes mine not ours because when Stannie got all lost looking inward at his brainsludge into which everything real sank way gone and all that was left was a saxophone floating atop the abyss, which Stannie says in his eloquent way, I was on my way down to a drowning end, Mousie, just like you stand now on the drowning edge of mathematical failure—what? You deny this? All right, here—take this; as a three-digit counting number, what is the median of the following five expressions?
One by one hundred two.
Three by eighty-two.
Five by sixty-two.
Seven by forty-two.
Nine by twenty-two.
Huh? Mousie, what? What is the problem?
Oh.
Feel how frightened you are now Mousie? How frightened you are is bleeding right out your face. Yes seeping right out your face! I know that feeling and like you wish to do I gave up went in to go to waste and be done with it, but; my hand pushed out and there was a preserver; the saxophone; and you need to let go fall in and push out your hand Mousie; there will be a preserver there Mousie; let yourself go be open to failing only when you surrender to the pulldown of dying will you gain the strength and presence of mine to clutch out, feel it, know it is salvation from God, grip it and pull out, and only after the glow of being impossibly and magically safe somehow, can you look and see what you grip in your hand that God had put there as a sign saying saying saying, Do this! And my sign was the sax. What do you suppose your sign is Mousie? Don’t you want to know? Decide to beat this math anxiety and get past and reach where the thing you were meant to be lies before you! Bump-stock the shit out this demon I told you of! Like I been telling you telling you—just beat the bastard of a thing! That’s all it is is a tiny speck of a thing that’s got you wrapped around multiple axles each one all crazy each thinking in rapidfire repetitious succession, that you’re faced with needing to squash a big planetary thing to be feared. There are none of those Mousie. When you know there are none of those like I do then you will be able to handle math and whatever comes next it’s got blocked off from you.
—Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban—
—in the fat blue pack of something very attractive a thickly stuffed-out envelope containing many things that pulled my hand did not open easily—
Harry—hey Harry, what do you think? With all this stuff happening, should I worry about Mousie?
—in the fat blue pack of something very attractive a thickly stuffed-out envelope containing many things that pulled my hand did not open easily but at last it did but—
Harry? What’s that in your hand? Hey that’s my mail, Harry. What’s what with my mail what—you’ve been opening it? Why?
—in the fat blue pack of something very attractive a thickly stuffed-out envelope containing many things that pulled my hand did not open easily but at last it did but, I shook it and shook it and nothing fell out—
Harry! Have you been listening to me at all?
—oh, it’s just some mistake. There’s nothing in it. Whoever sent it screwed up, it’s empty, but—
Harry, you—
Uh, oh—sorry Nora. Of course I’ve been listening. You know what I think?
What?
Based on all this, I think Mousie is fine. Boys will be boys you know, and—
That’s great, Harry. I knew you’d calm me down.
—boys will be boys, said Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban—
Harry rose quickly, saying, I’m glad I could help, Nora. Call me any time. But I got to run to the bank before it closes. Anything else I can help with?
—Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban said Boys will be boys—
No, no. Thanks for coming.
—boys will be boys on boys and on boys and—
No problem. So long.
—said Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban.
—the obvious answer is—gas station bathroom—
—yes? Harryman, yes—as a matter of fact, I’ve always thought of variation fifteen as the perfect Good Friday spell—haven’t you?
Yes Ma’am, I have.
Good. Bye then Harry, drive careful.
Sure will.
Harry nodded, turned to the door, and she followed as he oozed off away and, yah, plus; what is the definition of a Roman Catholic bishop was a valid question when Harry was coming, and is still a valid question now that Harry is leaving, but—why that question huh oh seeped from her face into that doorcrack in the dark there that so what it’s in shadow stare long enough and when he’s leaving there’s no toetips tapping the outside shiny brass doorbottom kickplate now either, even though kick sure why not, after all, that’s what the fuck they put it there for—comin’ or goan’ one can kick it. And solid knuckle-knocks don’t start out there past Nora’s big face when he’s goan’ like when he came in before—one and two and three and on four, always on four not three or five but four, hurry up close, here; here—Goodbye, Harry I say and he says the same but—not with his name. Wow what a big, big, turn! Nora stood there and just as when coming keys pull out now while going up to opened the door closed it switched in creaksteps down my porch gravel crunchsteps down my walk out there got into the car out there started the engine out there while as either coming or going or whatever she smoothed and smoothed and smoothed again her housedress no less than once per each passing aeon of a century still, yes, eh yeh; near my childhood neighbor of a first crushyfriend swatted three great big green summerflies in some gone August and then snap-bang they had all become Maggoty and Maggoted, Legal Counsellors, Esquire. A nearly infinite uncountable number of things happen during a life and as each one passes after having been fumbled through mishandled reacted to inappropriately back toward the immature phase of living the knowledge gets cemented that when full blown is stated as it is wise to be ready for each thing that happens. It is wise to be ready for each thing that stops happening. Nora pulled out of herself back into the actual house and stood at the door, stood there, smoothed down her housedress, and tensed for the complete visit with Harry to stop completely happening. Yes that’s him going he’s gone off going turning out two tone shining down sun cartop stylistically glittery glinting says yes that’s Harry and he’s going home to stop it all happening. To do. Should be allowed. As a dog. What causes the dog to experience a leisurely walk with time to nose every blade pole pebble hydrant as long as it takes and to stop squat or lift to do the nasties as many times as is needed on one day and to be virtually dragged from one signpost dog dating marker or angry my territory and this and this too unable to savor yah savor sweet savor; as a dog should be allowed to do? There he goes now is now, yes now is too. The same answer might explain how long a pet owner walks a dog. Why would he rush or not rush or whatever? But wait there he goes. Does he rush when he’s going away? Third Saturday of every spring summer fall month at this time of morning Harry must be on his way home now you know. Nora bit her lip as the thought momentarily blurred over her gaze that settled on the empty house across the wide field of wild yellow grass in the space between but there he goes. Harry is out of sight must be on his way home now you know. A place to never be a place to be or whatever that thank God, shrinks back away until next use, if any. Goes and comes and comes and goes is Harry. After calving the cow womb’s an empty humid stinking slimy useless void of a pitch-black scary assed place to be. Nothing forever and don’t care not only by virtue ability to be emptied refilled emptied and refilled forever. Nothings are the empty space in cups pots and bottles and boxes and. Neither good nor bad betweenwhich is nothing of a kind. Not knowing is an emptyhold of a hollow. The ship at dock unloads and loads. Goes and comes and comes and goes is Harry. This is how it is for on average the first several score times until; what. Yes. No hollow people dogs cats bears no hollow living creatures of any kind but; strive to be hollow because full is not comfortable but just as the whatever or another is expelled being hollow becomes uncomfortable and the striving gathering plotting and scheming to refill begins until the hollow is refilled with whatsomething anysomething that’s always off center in one direction or the other causing the race to strive for hollowness again what goes and comes and comes and goes is Harry. All hollows strive to be filled. All hallows strive to be; no hollows not hallows Father Greene. All hollows strive to be filled what? The cool glass she knows now is cool because when Harry was coming she touched it and it was then so it’s likely to be now. This rare moment of not needing to believe because it’s habit to believe, of knowing for sure it’s cool is a fact, has merged into the mass of why she holds about three-quarters of her beliefs, the last quarter listing such low-bodied things as what is the consistency and healthfulness of her last hot waste dumpmass, the color and quantity of her last bladderspewing drainout session, and has her foodbag been provided with sufficient filler to avoid the distraction of rising hunger which again we must realize is conceptually no different from the rising shaky sicknesses of hunger for the next heroin-fix of some backalley trashcanned lowlife of a junkie? She pressed her fingers harder pressure in the body the stretch of muscles the rush of blood to that area provides a drug rush that of course only a crazy one with black rotted front teeth would call so that helped her through waiting. But that aside having got her daily fix of the get up wake up know who and where you are and if you are safe or not and the calculated probability of surviving yet another day and the final rush of having the memory of processing through all this logic only to immediately forget she needed to be provided all this data input to unscramble and reset her downinside blockchains to be able to validly begin her day in a safe and totally resynchronized with the really real all around herself environmental surfaces on all sides, yes it’s true she had washed dressed brushed coffeed and breakfasted and it’s true she had called up Harry to ask him to come to her because she needed to spew some meaning into her emptiness of any knowledge of if Mousie, who had been injured and hospitalized and from a no news is good news perspective is probably fine because it is the tendency of her breed’s collegiate male offspring to only call home if they want or need something or are in some trouble of one kind or another and also it is the societal tendency of her breed to not unnecessarily nag the offspring as that will be resented and in about fifty percent of such cases this will only drive a fat wedge between the two of them and that is the last thing they want, whew, so; the shortest way for them to get the opioid fix that will fill the hollow of not knowing what’s going on they will call some handy ear of a person who will listen to them and, if properly provided with good data input, will offer comfort in some way in return; and Harry had come and given her this and leaving caused her to press her widespread unmanicured fingertips on the sill again at his going just as she had at his coming, she thought through the glass the list of questions she had run by Harry before he left, that he did not have any way of knowing the answers to but in this situation a friendly nod smile and acknowledgement that the questions are indeed valid and she is not a worrysore of a warty nutcase for wondering the fuck what’s going on and for being mildly annoyed by the fact Mouse is not communicating even though she knows in the hindmost of her whirling brainfissures that young men of that age do not put keeping Mom in the loop of all rolling life-things they are about atop their lists of things to do today. How pompous of any breed of living things cursed with the ability to accept input process the input and shit from their gross bottomholes their news and views of what they think of and know about and consider to be true of every real and unreal poor passing prey they trap-snag and convert by some chew of which there are many kinds also into their input big gaping superwide strongly toothed hoppermaws. The space past the glass hung in the air hollow and empty of Harry; the ground beneath the window began the space all empty of Harry; every boxbottom steel drum barrel bottom car floorboard and even the space in her hollow house began with some real thing at the bottom to stand on and look over the space all around from the safe solid vantage point mortal sentient creatures are saddled with the reality of the fact being they need safety it’s an addiction of a kind it’s monkeys on their collective backs to need safety; an opioid; the need after need for one place to stand after the other; just because something’s not made by human chemists and labeled and proclaimed to be a drug doesn’t mean it’s not a drug. Four hours ago she’d got off the phone with Harry and he’d come and gone and all already he must be halfway home by now. Nora stood at the window overlooking the driveway. I think the same always you know. Always you know I think the same.
Jim Meirose's work has appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including Calliope, Offbeat/Quirky (Journal of Exp. Fiction pub,), Permafrost, North Atlantic Review, Blueline, Witness, and Xavier Review, and has been nominated for several awards. Published books include: Understanding Franklin Thompson (Exp. novel - JEF pubs (2018)), Sunday Dinner With Father Dwyer (Exp. Novel - Scarlet Leaf Press (2018)), Inferno (E-Chap - Underground Voices), Mount Everest and Eli the Rat (Lit. Novels - Montag). Visit www.jimmeirose.com to know more.
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Always You Know I Think the Same
(Fragment of the WIP novel “Dans l'odeur de la sainteté”)
I think the same always you know. Always you know I think the same. Nora stood at the window overlooking the driveway. A half hour ago she’d got off the phone with Harry and he must be halfway here by now. The space past the glass hung in the air hollow; the ground beneath the window began the space; every boxbottom steel drum barrel bottom car floorboard and even the space in her hollow house began with some real thing at the bottom to stand on and look over the space all around from the safe solid vantage point mortal sentient creatures are saddled with the reality of the fact being they need safety it’s an addiction of a kind it’s monkeys on their collective backs to need safety; an opioid; the need after need for one place to stand after the other; just because something’s not made by human chemists and labeled and proclaimed to be a drug doesn’t mean it’s not a drug. How pompous of any breed of living things cursed with the ability to accept input process the input and shit from their gross bottomholes their news and views of what they think of and know about and consider to be true of every real and unreal poor passing prey they trap-snag and convert by some chew of which there are many kinds also into their input big gaping superwide strongly toothed hoppermaws. But that aside having got her daily fix of the get up wake up know who and where you are and if you are safe or not and the calculated probability of surviving yet another day and the final rush of having the memory of processing through all this logic only to immediately forget she needed to be provided all this data input to unscramble and reset her downinside blockchains to be able to validly begin her day in a safe and totally resynchronized with the really real all around herself environmental surfaces on all sides, she washed dressed brushed coffeed and breakfasted and called up Harry to ask him to come to her because she needed to spew some meaning into her emptiness of any knowledge of if Mousie, who had been injured and hospitalized and from a no news is good news perspective is probably fine because it is the tendency of her breed’s collegiate male offspring to only call home if they want or need something or are in some trouble of one kind or another and also it is the societal tendency of her breed to not unnecessarily nag the offspring as that will be resented and in about fifty percent of such cases this will only drive a fat wedge between the two of them and that is the last thing they want, whew, so; the shortest way for them to get the opioid fix that will fill the hollow of not knowing what’s going on they will call some handy ear of a person who will listen to them and, if properly provided with good data input, will offer comfort in some way in return; so as Nora pressed her widespread unmanicured fingertips on the sill, she thought through the glass the list of questions she would run by Harry when he arrived, that he will not have any way of knowing the answers to but in this situation a friendly nod smile and acknowledgement that the questions are indeed valid and she is not a worrysore of a warty nutcase for wondering the fuck what’s going on and for being mildly annoyed by the fact Mouse is not communicating even though she knows in the hindmost of her whirling brainfissures that young men of that age do not put keeping Mom in the loop of all rolling life-things they are about atop their lists of things to do today. She pressed her fingers harder pressure in the body the stretch of muscles the rush of blood to that area provides a drug rush that of course only a crazy one with black rotted front teeth would call so that helped her through waiting. The cool glass she could not possibly know for sure is cool having not touched it since the last Windexing rubjob last spring, but which she believes so because it’s habit to believe, which is why and how she holds about three-quarters of her beliefs, the last quarter listing such low-bodied things as what is the consistency and healthfulness of her last hot waste dumpmass, the color and quantity of her last bladderspewing drainout session, and has her foodbag been provided with sufficient filler to avoid the distraction of rising hunger which again we must realize is conceptually no different from the rising shaky sicknesses of hunger for the next heroin-fix of some backalley trashcanned lowlife of a junkie? All hollows strive to be filled what? All hallows strive to be; no hollows not hallows Father Greene. All hollows strive to be filled. No hollow people dogs cats bears no hollow living creatures of any kind but; strive to be hollow because full is not comfortable but just as the whatever or another is expelled being hollow becomes uncomfortable and the striving gathering plotting and scheming to refill begins until the hollow is refilled with whatsomething anysomething that’s always off center in one direction or the other causing the race to strive for hollowness again what? This is how it is for on average the first several score times until; what. Yes. The ship at dock unloads and loads. Not knowing is an emptyhold of a hollow. Neither good nor bad betweenwhich is nothing of a kind. Nothings are the empty space in cups pots and bottles and boxes and. Nothing forever and don’t care not only by virtue of the ability to be emptied refilled emptied and refilled forever. After calving the cow womb’s an empty humid stinking slimy useless void of a pitch-black scary assed place to be. A place to never be a place to be or whatever that thank God, shrinks back away until next use, if any. Harry must be on his way now you know. Nora bit her lip as the thought momentarily blurred over her gaze that settled on the empty house across the wide field of wild yellow grass in the space between but there he is. Third Saturday of every spring summer fall month at this time of morning Harry must be on his way now you know. Does he rush when he’s on his way? But wait there he is. Why would he rush or not rush or whatever? The same answer might explain how long a pet owner walks a dog. Here he comes now is that, yes is. What causes the dog to experience a leisurely walk with time to nose every blade pole pebble hydrant as long as it takes and to stop squat or lift to do the nasties as many times as is needed on one day and to be virtually dragged from one signpost dog dating marker or angry my territory and this and this too unable to savor yah savor sweet savor; as a dog should be allowed to do? As a dog. Should be allowed. To do. Yes that is him he’s there turning in two tone shining down sun cartop stylistically glittery glinting says yes that’s Harry and he’s coming in. Nora pulled out of herself back into the actual house and went to the door, stood there, smoothed down her housedress, and tensed for the knock. It is wise to be ready for each thing that happens. A nearly infinite uncountable number of things happen during a life and as each one passes after having been fumbled through mishandled reacted to inappropriately back toward the immature phase of living the knowledge gets cemented that when full blown is stated as it is wise to be ready for each thing that happens. Nora stood there and as usual years passed as he pulled up out there cut the engine out there got out the car out there shut the door pocketed the keys she smoothed and smoothed and smoothed again her housedress no less than once per each passing aeon of a century eh yeh; footsteps on gravel footsteps up my walk creaksteps up my porch yes so near yet so far my childhood neighbor of a first crushyfriend swatted three great big green summerflies in some gone August and then snap-bang they had all become Maggoty and Maggoted, Legal Counsellors, Esquire. Wow what a big, big, turn! Plus; what is the definition of a Roman Catholic bishop was a valid question also all at once, but—why that question huh oh seeped into her face from that doorcrack in the dark there that so what it’s in shadow stare long enough and there’s toetips tapping the outside shiny brass doorbottom kickplate, well, sure, kick sure why not, after all, that’s what the fuck they put it there for—and solid knuckle-knocks start out there past Nora’s big face—one and two and three and on four, always on four not three or five but four, hurry up open, here; here—Hello, Harry. Thanks for coming. I put you out so—you probably hate me by now I am always—after this I will not call anymore, I won’t. No I won’t, I swear I won’t I am such a bother—
Hi, Nora—no no no, don’t think that. Don’t stop calling. It’s a pleasure to come visit. And also for your information, a Roman Catholic bishop is an ordained, consecrated, or appointed member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Got that?
Why—why did you say all that, Harry?
Say what? I said it is a pleasure to come visit.
No, I mean the other thing—about the bishop.
Bishop? What bishop?
—what fucking bishop but how did he fucking know—at times of boredom when the science game is slow do they ask these questions that have no answers yes yes yes—
Oh, never mind. Let us just carry on. I need to ask you your opinion about another problem with Mousie.
I thought he got over that knock on the head—what’s the problem? Are there complications? What, Nora.
It’s that I have not heard from him at all since we talked on the phone the day after he went to the hospital. I called the hospital and they said he was discharged. They wouldn’t tell me any details. I don’t think that’s right, I mean, I’m his Mother. But they wouldn’t budge a nut.
—Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban—
Did you try calling the college? They should know right?
They don’t know. They said they knew he had an accident but as far as they knew, he was back going to school—but again, they wouldn’t tell me more. Wouldn’t even look into it and get back to me. Wouldn’t even—
—break down the name break it down break—in French the meaning of that bishop’s first name, Louis, is famous warrior, from the old German name Chlodovech—
—give me the number of his dorm, no nothing no not nothing! How can they be this way, Harry? Isn’t it totally wrong? They are ice-cold as dead people!
—the next name, Pierre, originally means rock or stone in French—
Nora, come over here. Let’s sit at that table. I am sure there’s nothing wrong. If you’re hearing nothing he’s probably just busy. He’s facing that math final you know.
Oh, Harry, that’s true. Yeah—he’s probably focusing everything he’s got on studying for that. He’s probably still scared to death he’ll fail. You know.
That may be true Nora. That’s probably it. Plus, bad news gets around fast. News that things are normal again in any case are not seen as critical to get around quickly—
You know where he gets that need to ignore everything else to be able to do one thing well?
Where.
From Stannie. He was like that. Stannie even admitted that was true. He told me that when he was a boy it was cars. He was crazy over cars and nothing else mattered. He didn’t even sleep or eat when he was into tinkering with a car. He used to tell me he had the fastest car on the boulevard for a couple of months. He built the car up from a wreck with the other guy he called hemi-man Puskas. They worked like mad and nobody would take them on in a race while they had that car—but the damned thing got stolen in Newark NJ while he and hemi-man were chugging down beers with some gang of greasers parting about a good day at the track and he came out and the fucker was gone—
Nora, you never talk like that. Hey.
What do you mean.
The f-word. I don’t think I ever heard you use that.
Me? I didn’t use it—that’s exactly the words Stannie used when he told me. I mean I wanted to tell you an exact story don’t you want exact stories from people who are telling you about things they know about that went on way back?
Oh, yeah, sure, Nora—I meant nothing, no, it’s just that—
No no no, Harry—you don’t need to explain I know where you’re at. You’re just like everybody else; it’s just that you want the story to be made tamer than it was. Because you want the story twisted up all polite like people do. You don’t want to see how hard the world really is. You want that all filtered out you just want everything all pretty pretty and mild. Because you’re no different than anybody else in this shit world who can’t take honesty because honesty is so rare and unusual today it’s mistaken for crudeness or rudeness or whatever hey yeah that what is that the problem hey? The real world is rude and crude! You just don’t want to admit that eh? Glenn Gould said of this variation, It’s the most severe and rigorous and beautiful canon— the most severe and beautiful that I know!
Nora—
You know Harry I can tell you what I think of what I said because we are close, so here’s rest—I mean the dam in my is busted I been to wild inside Harry wild inside yeah wild—here it is I think this makes sense that it’s why I reacted the way I did—when quoting someone you’re supposed to quote them exactly word-for word. You know why there’s confusion and misunderstanding in the world Harry? I know you want to know so you don’t need to answer I’ll swing right into the applicable natural law that is, summarizing or paraphrasing twists dilutes changes a stated truth—it is even true Harry that the tower of Babel legend in the Bible was not that there was confusion of languages at all, but that the people building the tower started summarizing and paraphrasing and even deliberately for their own selfish reasons, twisted their explanations of things that they heard stated to say things not in accurate ways at all but dropped whole statements and inserted faked statement designed to further their own personal agendas, as; hey there man, hand me that hammer over there, hey, man, the guy other side of me wants that mallet there, hey, man, that guy two guys over wants to start stealing wallets there, hey, man, call the cops there’s a pickpocketing ring just formed and those three guys other side of me are the freak frack flucking founders, and, Harry, hey, that’s even how the f-word got created want be to explain that one to you I would if I could but since I wasn’t there to hear the exact words I’ll have to design build tests debug and deploy the first known time machine in creation to go back so I can be there and hear the exact words and then zip back to you and quote to you exactly what they done said saying stated hey—ya ya the case drew enormous attention from the whole of France, and Catherine was supported by parliamentarians, noblewomen, and the public in Toulon and Aix ya ya—
—Nora poor Nora—she is slipping so, I’m glad I came, it’s almost like I am not here but if I was not here she’d just have it all bottled up but now it comes like a word-spew of word-pus some kind of virtual cyst or worse on her brain inside it’s a good thing she’s getting it out the pressure on the brain from letting it expand in her bony headpart is that the brain would get squeezed out but no it can’t get out so it would die; like some martyr being pressed to death in the medium ages hey no maybe even as far back as the middle ages but not as far back as the low ages or the no ages yet at all but hey stifle yourself let her talk you popped her safety button and here come a major perhaps week-long spew as bad as two buckets of juice from a stomach-punch into a dying elderly miniature donkey so cold they pulled socks over her ears hey—
—plus, the definition of the French word de is of or from. Now, what the hell is that doing in a name? Here’s the name; Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban; it posted somehow into my head from regions beyond like so much shit-frick does. He was a prime player in the Cadiere affair. For some reason it’s in my head that I know all about this; I know all about what happened in the year eighteen fifty-two. I don’t know how I do but I do. I know Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban’s name and I cannot deal with that in the dead center or maybe a little off to the side to be very exact—remember I said that when quoting someone you’re supposed to quote them exactly word-for word? Well though I am not quoting now, which I did not think through before recalling you back to what I said, which is an example of non-deliberate introduction of devious intent, which because I was not careful to think through my next move, has altered the future from you believing I am wise to you believing I’m a lying bitch—this is why the Tower of Babel project was abandoned as described in the thousands of embarrassingly amateurish videos on the topic posted over BlueTube across the worldwide overnet; or the uppernet inside the metube or wherever they stuff all this kind of long loud pap; what was I saying oh yes, Stannie; I suppose I should not be upset that Mousie’s not communicative at this very time he must know I am worried to death because that’s just how Stannie may he rest in peace always was, or; no I think it also had something to do with the clinker they dropped in Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban’s name—
—apparently Nora never opens her mail, thought Harry, upon idly noticing as she continued draining her pressure out her face, that his hand rested on a pile of envelopes of assorted color size consistency and odor. Washed in her mouthflow he escaped to reality by idly paging through the pile and reading here and there the snippets of sound that poked at him through the spaces between her alphabetical string-artifacts with meanings attached but not at the same time somehow magically hey otherwise commonly considered by mere mortals to be words. Narrowly avoiding papercut after papercut, he longnailed the things open and read erratically throughout her big salad of a bombardment.
—Brand new from Beverage-Spawned Vanitybooks for only ten and change—confessions of a Dresden-bound bombdropper—the hair of the juice, baby, is all that lets me go through with the deliberately blasting away of so so many—
—during his twenties and thirties, Harry—by the way I think that’s when you started draining us of mass quantities of watergallons to wash one jalopy your bachelorhood allowed you to sport the necessary money to be able to buy one new boat after the other in exactly two-year increments—
—available everywhere including at your neighborhood Brain & Nuggets—
—during that time Stannie got tugged over into believing that if he stayed at work longer than anybody else turned more wrenches than anyone else became expert on the entrails of more trucks tractors cars and Mariah Careys that found there way in range of his gleaming red and chrome-trimmed maxi-toolbox, he would rise in the ranks of the greasemen over greasemen until he reached the top without more than a few hundred slipbacks all easily recovered from and acquire the relatively meaningless to anyone outside the county garage crew title of, Top Scraper of Stinking Sludge-Masses—
—hey that sounds good I’m into war books might buy that sure lay it aside what’s next—hey here; Wrapper-Wound faux-tinfoil company touts new winter heating costs reduction breakthrough—whirly roundy circular brass horny-noisy sounding something—
—that was when we had Mousie. At the time I thought it was a happy time, but I think looking back that was when Mousie first started to develop problems in his head, hey it might sound harsh to put it that way but, isn’t it true that everything is in your head after all, there might not even be a reality at all we might all be fools stumbling around in some noplace not dark and not bright all fooled into thinking we’re real but, I get a little scared when I think Harry that maybe if I start to think these things one day I’ll wake up fully knowing its true and reality will fall away like some flimsy wrapper of a worn-out bathrobe and I’ll realize we all have been dead all along just fooled and laughed at and made small of and danced around like foolish puppets at the whim of the likes of Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban and his henchmen and their myriad ilk—
—for years farmers watchmen first responders and dentists have known that the best way to fight hypothermia is to wrapper ‘em in one of dem dere tinfoil looking creepywrappers used at night all over France when some mass this or that occurs, otherwise known to be calling herselves generically in other kingdoms old world and new et cetera, all cross the industry, space blankets—
—they were not fool enough to think they were alive. No. And, actually, that is not as depressing as it sounds because it simply means, the word alive has no meaning. No meaning no. The Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban simply swapped out the alive sign hung off the side of the phenomenon in question with an Armorica sign; yes. We are all Armorica until we die; and that word can be swapped for another as, the sign die hung off that particular shred of verbegitation is swapped for a hastily blue Bic-penned simpleword, mainly, not—yea yeah so on Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban’s distant as hell plane, everyone’s Armorica until they not. Pretty devilish, eh? Yah we ‘tink so too—
—as a matter of fact, our product has been used to protect battlefield combatants—you got to admit that to be used for such suchlike our product must be at keelbottom and lowerdown, pretty fucking robust—the Taliban namely. You know the Taliban. They wrap themselves in our product at night to hide their heat signature from NATO forces who desire to heat-seek them directly into the arms of their imaginary heavenly virginal lie of a waitstaff—
—then for a while as Stannie rose in garage seniority, he thought that it would poke a large scale featherclump out his scalpcover if he would be able to mystify incoming apprentice tooltwisters with a display of the type of ability, which, when transferred to other occupations, would manifest itself in such ways as in a Robert Fischer keeping twenty boards going simultaneously defeating twenty opponents, and not a single one of them a slouch, in the tiny movable sometimes ivory carved tiny-statues game-space otherwise known around here as chess, or in a funny-dressed southerly loud quick but always by rote woodenslab electrified baby-faced stringplayer playing in just as fleet-blastingly loud of a manner behind his head and back as before his eyes in a manner that even drew hundreds to pay sacks over sacks of dollars to watch, or in the leader of a white gowned high paid supereducated medi-clanging clan in some clinically sterilized hot lit space named after what’s done in it, which leader cuts into one knocked-out sickly human after the other with the support of his gang, slowly and methodically wounding each victim so badly, but in a very perverse and precisely calculated manner, that it takes months sometimes years of lingering pain for the victim to recover, if they ever do at all. This slashing and piercing and flaying and worse is done using this blade, that drill and those saws, each tool designed to inflict a very particular type of injury, all wild assed, yes yes, with the leader every minute shouting orders to the fast-moving greased-up underlings orders like, scalpel! Forceps! But, not really quite in those merely generic terms, but in an exotic manner calling out for the Hartmann Mosquito Forceps, three and one-half inch, or the Miller-Senn Retractor Double End Sharp, six inch, or that supertall and quite sharp sterilehuman slouching there named Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban, or simply sprinkly-man poop-massman combination spreader-cutter, size large, there—how ‘bout it? Do it faster or become an immediate unemployment statistic! Hey—thus sprak Gelf, also, the supposed Indian-born Manx talking mongoose, hot ticket of the thirties—
—a length of that silver stuff would come in handy but slip the ad aside there’s a fat blue pack of something very attractive a thickly stuffed-out envelope containing many things pulls the hand must find out that there’s many things in and of itself means nothing but if there’s many of something worth plenty each then the whole pack of them accordions widely way out in value; oh yah got to rip it out oh yah now now now got to see what it is; yah yah almighty God, it’s something rare; so rare it scalds the hand and drops away and repeats this ten times until its ratchet at last catches its nutty-top-bracket and zip zap it falls in a free coasterslide rush-slip of a super-loud Mister-Bach classic-style canon at the fifth in two quarter time just like variation twelve that slip-slid black-ice style before all in contrary motion with the leader appearing inverted in the second bar but not thank God for long enough to suffer the inevitable excruciatingly horrid heart-popping death—which is a death so moving, so anguished—and so uplifting at the same time—that it would not be in any way out of place in the St. Matthew’s Passion—
—Stannie thought it was super impressive that the leader of the white coated slice-‘em-up gang would bark order after order for this or that fantastically-named tool, as, not to yell out simply, Give me the scissors, but, Five-inch Ragnells, please! Or, not just simply, Give me a knife, but, Number fifteen sharp, please! Quickly, nurse! Do you not have a degree? Huh—yes yes, that type of snotty remark, too—Stannie wanted to do the same so he remembered something from when he was an oily little snip—he told me how he’d be bellied down like a baby under one of his cross-the-street neighbor Mister Superior’s jalopymobiles with the very master mechanic himself and the great man’s son Sonny, and the master mechanic twisted a bolt, snapped off the socket and rolled it to Sonny, barked out three quarter socket and Sonny reached over the tooltray and dropped the last one where it belonged and gripped up the next one without needing to look because there was a place for everything and everything was always in its place—the repetition of this scenario hundreds of thousands of times through his boyhood impressed with the need to sometimes be quite anal—and Sonny drifted the necessary socket to the master who palmed it and snapped it onto the ratchet and spun it and used it again without looking, and then; the entire sequence repeated itself with the only variable being the specific tool being called for each time until the work on that specific point under the jalopymobile was complete. Mechano-mania, stemming originally way back from the date the first Hawaiian cavalry was organized, was the Front Driver’s rust bucket for all this fast beaching, but, the Superiors being pure artists of the Craftsman breaker bar, they did not dwell there but as always pushed out from under Sonny gripped up the tooltray and followed the master to the next point of work. Each job, Stannie learned, was composed of a series of definite points of work chained together the winding of the chain over under around and through the spaces and nooks and crannies of the particular jalopymobile was followed by the Superiors until the vehicle was completely repaired. Then it would be slid out of the garage bay the operating room doors opened automatically the vehicle was stable enough now to be sent home with medication or as was most likely held for the days required for the inflammation to fade the pain to decrease the necessary walks down the hall and back dragging the IV the roll around the block the door cracked open the assigned nurselike repair-tester listening for any knocks roars cracks creaks painful moans unexpected slowdowns and in rare cases the collapse of the jalopymobile required it to be pushed back to the garagebay but this was very rare as proven by the statistics that show less than half a percent of the vehicles, jalopymobile, as described in the Army parts stack catalog, a house-sized and thusly unused and ridiculous document until some clone woke up with the bright idea to chop it up into no less than a couple hundred thousand individual volumes each no more than three tons in tare weight this rating clearly marked on each spine as required by the United States Forest Service which at the end of the day is the buck-stops-here point answerable for the amount of trees harvested per annum—and because of this Stannie toyed with the sub-momentary idea of possibly pursuing a government career as a Ranger with a really neat hat, issued free; but the hat fetish only plagued him for a moment or two in passing squelched incrementally by the distraction of each new belly down under another of Mister Superior’s jalopymobiles with the very master mechanic himself and the great man’s son Sonny and the immediately female tug into the same comforting calming anal-space again and again until guess what finally broke that off hey Harry guess what finally broke off Stannie’s infatuation with hearing orders a’barking again and again three quarter inch knucklebuster big fat electrical drill number fifteen European style crow’s foot and metric ton estimator and twelve great big flying machines higher than thirty thousand feet leveled off you may undo your seat belts and move around the cabin freely while the flight attendants prepare the mid-day complimentary traditional dish of assorted universal sautéed nuts and bolts the traditional delicacy when crossing the equator from north to south for the first time like somebody really gives a crankshaft spin or two or three if you ever really crossed it before, as a matter of fact there’s no formal record of who crossed the equator when where what and how—do you want to know what soured Stannie boy on the sweet decalced Superiors? Hey? Pay attention Harry the only reason you are here is because I needed a warm place to put this nearly obscenely super long emotionally taxing narrative thread that’s been building up clogging me clogging yes clogging in me since Mousie hit his head my boy you know Mousie hit his head my boy? Well. My my my, my. It is indeed a very small world—anyway, all that gas aside; do you think no news is good news and I should assume Mousie is fine? Or should I not.
No! What you should assume is that this is the first of the three variations in G minor, and its melancholic mood contrasts sharply with the playfulness of the previous variation.
What? Wait a minute, that’s got nothing to do with Mousie. This is not a joke don’t joke I know you’re known for your jokes as every bachelor who knows that’s it for the other one won’t ever happen, you’re such jokesters such jokes I know you didn’t mean it—
Oh, sure I did and it is no joke—even such a precious luminary as Pianist Angel-Scruff Neckbrace herself, notes that there’s a wonderful effect at the very end of this variation. The hands move away from each other, with the right suspended in mid-air on an open fifth.
All right, Harry, hear me hear me good. Say you’re sorry.
No, I am not—face it Nora, face it for once; know that this gradual fade, leaving us in awe but ready for more, is a fitting end to the first half of the piece.
All right you bastard; I will just talk over you to wrap this shit-bag up for a safe tossaway acceptable to be part of the regular Monday morning trashheave, Stannie finally broke with the Superiors when on the same magical day that an original condition nineteen fifty Studebreaker crunchy-coupe special showed up parked at the edge of their sandy claypit of a mudyard, that same magical day that Mister Superior officially crossed over to the demented other side of this life, clicked lit his firetorch, and hissed it over and around and through the nearly rare vehicle and turned it by means of the scalding hot cutting summer’s day blowout method, to a pile of slipping and sliding dangerous to stand on small steel sheets; and that was the end of that phase of the life of Jackbootean John ValJean, quarter brother of Julius Richard Petri, German bacteriologist of nowhere near the same name. Original sin and all the rest of that old school legend, then propelled Stannie to the highest level watermarker above Jack Bruce level local big fish in small pond fame and he was just starting to consider joining the professional garage mechanic’s nationwide master of twist-socketry tour similar in philosophy to Bassmasters and such but much much more difficult because on the PGM circuit you need to bring to the massly populated with screaming obsessives stadium a tank of still living but doomed impressively sized Studebakers whereas in Bassmaster is just a cooler of still living but doomed slippery slick but too bushed to writhe-too-much bassfishes. Similar in concept to Chinese stadium mass execution spectacles entertaining robed Chinese roman types hungry all hungry for Christian blood bone and gorybits all flying big quick lion-wisely yup, but a few dozen Chinese drug dealers extortionists Bitcoin fruadsters Nipponese Ramen-style boilable as well as broiler ready ponzigeeks, and a few cash-only Italian suitmakers thrown in to provide the necessary crunch to the screaming horde’s palate. Anyway, Stannie was level in the head through his thirties and most of his forties until wham, bam, thank you Ma’am, the sax in him outsprang nearly butterflying his rib bones, and pushed him face down in his breakfastly branbowl that morning and that was the day the trap door vacuumed normal Stannie away into the mystery space and the Stannie new took its place and my house, yes mine not ours because when Stannie got all lost looking inward at his brainsludge into which everything real sank way gone and all that was left was a saxophone floating atop the abyss, which Stannie says in his eloquent way, I was on my way down to a drowning end, Mousie, just like you stand now on the drowning edge of mathematical failure—what? You deny this? All right, here—take this; as a three-digit counting number, what is the median of the following five expressions?
One by one hundred two.
Three by eighty-two.
Five by sixty-two.
Seven by forty-two.
Nine by twenty-two.
Huh? Mousie, what? What is the problem?
Oh.
Feel how frightened you are now Mousie? How frightened you are is bleeding right out your face. Yes seeping right out your face! I know that feeling and like you wish to do I gave up went in to go to waste and be done with it, but; my hand pushed out and there was a preserver; the saxophone; and you need to let go fall in and push out your hand Mousie; there will be a preserver there Mousie; let yourself go be open to failing only when you surrender to the pulldown of dying will you gain the strength and presence of mine to clutch out, feel it, know it is salvation from God, grip it and pull out, and only after the glow of being impossibly and magically safe somehow, can you look and see what you grip in your hand that God had put there as a sign saying saying saying, Do this! And my sign was the sax. What do you suppose your sign is Mousie? Don’t you want to know? Decide to beat this math anxiety and get past and reach where the thing you were meant to be lies before you! Bump-stock the shit out this demon I told you of! Like I been telling you telling you—just beat the bastard of a thing! That’s all it is is a tiny speck of a thing that’s got you wrapped around multiple axles each one all crazy each thinking in rapidfire repetitious succession, that you’re faced with needing to squash a big planetary thing to be feared. There are none of those Mousie. When you know there are none of those like I do then you will be able to handle math and whatever comes next it’s got blocked off from you.
—Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban—
—in the fat blue pack of something very attractive a thickly stuffed-out envelope containing many things that pulled my hand did not open easily—
Harry—hey Harry, what do you think? With all this stuff happening, should I worry about Mousie?
—in the fat blue pack of something very attractive a thickly stuffed-out envelope containing many things that pulled my hand did not open easily but at last it did but—
Harry? What’s that in your hand? Hey that’s my mail, Harry. What’s what with my mail what—you’ve been opening it? Why?
—in the fat blue pack of something very attractive a thickly stuffed-out envelope containing many things that pulled my hand did not open easily but at last it did but, I shook it and shook it and nothing fell out—
Harry! Have you been listening to me at all?
—oh, it’s just some mistake. There’s nothing in it. Whoever sent it screwed up, it’s empty, but—
Harry, you—
Uh, oh—sorry Nora. Of course I’ve been listening. You know what I think?
What?
Based on all this, I think Mousie is fine. Boys will be boys you know, and—
That’s great, Harry. I knew you’d calm me down.
—boys will be boys, said Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban—
Harry rose quickly, saying, I’m glad I could help, Nora. Call me any time. But I got to run to the bank before it closes. Anything else I can help with?
—Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban said Boys will be boys—
No, no. Thanks for coming.
—boys will be boys on boys and on boys and—
No problem. So long.
—said Bishop Louis-Pierre de La Tour du Pin-Montauban.
—the obvious answer is—gas station bathroom—
—yes? Harryman, yes—as a matter of fact, I’ve always thought of variation fifteen as the perfect Good Friday spell—haven’t you?
Yes Ma’am, I have.
Good. Bye then Harry, drive careful.
Sure will.
Harry nodded, turned to the door, and she followed as he oozed off away and, yah, plus; what is the definition of a Roman Catholic bishop was a valid question when Harry was coming, and is still a valid question now that Harry is leaving, but—why that question huh oh seeped from her face into that doorcrack in the dark there that so what it’s in shadow stare long enough and when he’s leaving there’s no toetips tapping the outside shiny brass doorbottom kickplate now either, even though kick sure why not, after all, that’s what the fuck they put it there for—comin’ or goan’ one can kick it. And solid knuckle-knocks don’t start out there past Nora’s big face when he’s goan’ like when he came in before—one and two and three and on four, always on four not three or five but four, hurry up close, here; here—Goodbye, Harry I say and he says the same but—not with his name. Wow what a big, big, turn! Nora stood there and just as when coming keys pull out now while going up to opened the door closed it switched in creaksteps down my porch gravel crunchsteps down my walk out there got into the car out there started the engine out there while as either coming or going or whatever she smoothed and smoothed and smoothed again her housedress no less than once per each passing aeon of a century still, yes, eh yeh; near my childhood neighbor of a first crushyfriend swatted three great big green summerflies in some gone August and then snap-bang they had all become Maggoty and Maggoted, Legal Counsellors, Esquire. A nearly infinite uncountable number of things happen during a life and as each one passes after having been fumbled through mishandled reacted to inappropriately back toward the immature phase of living the knowledge gets cemented that when full blown is stated as it is wise to be ready for each thing that happens. It is wise to be ready for each thing that stops happening. Nora pulled out of herself back into the actual house and stood at the door, stood there, smoothed down her housedress, and tensed for the complete visit with Harry to stop completely happening. Yes that’s him going he’s gone off going turning out two tone shining down sun cartop stylistically glittery glinting says yes that’s Harry and he’s going home to stop it all happening. To do. Should be allowed. As a dog. What causes the dog to experience a leisurely walk with time to nose every blade pole pebble hydrant as long as it takes and to stop squat or lift to do the nasties as many times as is needed on one day and to be virtually dragged from one signpost dog dating marker or angry my territory and this and this too unable to savor yah savor sweet savor; as a dog should be allowed to do? There he goes now is now, yes now is too. The same answer might explain how long a pet owner walks a dog. Why would he rush or not rush or whatever? But wait there he goes. Does he rush when he’s going away? Third Saturday of every spring summer fall month at this time of morning Harry must be on his way home now you know. Nora bit her lip as the thought momentarily blurred over her gaze that settled on the empty house across the wide field of wild yellow grass in the space between but there he goes. Harry is out of sight must be on his way home now you know. A place to never be a place to be or whatever that thank God, shrinks back away until next use, if any. Goes and comes and comes and goes is Harry. After calving the cow womb’s an empty humid stinking slimy useless void of a pitch-black scary assed place to be. Nothing forever and don’t care not only by virtue ability to be emptied refilled emptied and refilled forever. Nothings are the empty space in cups pots and bottles and boxes and. Neither good nor bad betweenwhich is nothing of a kind. Not knowing is an emptyhold of a hollow. The ship at dock unloads and loads. Goes and comes and comes and goes is Harry. This is how it is for on average the first several score times until; what. Yes. No hollow people dogs cats bears no hollow living creatures of any kind but; strive to be hollow because full is not comfortable but just as the whatever or another is expelled being hollow becomes uncomfortable and the striving gathering plotting and scheming to refill begins until the hollow is refilled with whatsomething anysomething that’s always off center in one direction or the other causing the race to strive for hollowness again what goes and comes and comes and goes is Harry. All hollows strive to be filled. All hallows strive to be; no hollows not hallows Father Greene. All hollows strive to be filled what? The cool glass she knows now is cool because when Harry was coming she touched it and it was then so it’s likely to be now. This rare moment of not needing to believe because it’s habit to believe, of knowing for sure it’s cool is a fact, has merged into the mass of why she holds about three-quarters of her beliefs, the last quarter listing such low-bodied things as what is the consistency and healthfulness of her last hot waste dumpmass, the color and quantity of her last bladderspewing drainout session, and has her foodbag been provided with sufficient filler to avoid the distraction of rising hunger which again we must realize is conceptually no different from the rising shaky sicknesses of hunger for the next heroin-fix of some backalley trashcanned lowlife of a junkie? She pressed her fingers harder pressure in the body the stretch of muscles the rush of blood to that area provides a drug rush that of course only a crazy one with black rotted front teeth would call so that helped her through waiting. But that aside having got her daily fix of the get up wake up know who and where you are and if you are safe or not and the calculated probability of surviving yet another day and the final rush of having the memory of processing through all this logic only to immediately forget she needed to be provided all this data input to unscramble and reset her downinside blockchains to be able to validly begin her day in a safe and totally resynchronized with the really real all around herself environmental surfaces on all sides, yes it’s true she had washed dressed brushed coffeed and breakfasted and it’s true she had called up Harry to ask him to come to her because she needed to spew some meaning into her emptiness of any knowledge of if Mousie, who had been injured and hospitalized and from a no news is good news perspective is probably fine because it is the tendency of her breed’s collegiate male offspring to only call home if they want or need something or are in some trouble of one kind or another and also it is the societal tendency of her breed to not unnecessarily nag the offspring as that will be resented and in about fifty percent of such cases this will only drive a fat wedge between the two of them and that is the last thing they want, whew, so; the shortest way for them to get the opioid fix that will fill the hollow of not knowing what’s going on they will call some handy ear of a person who will listen to them and, if properly provided with good data input, will offer comfort in some way in return; and Harry had come and given her this and leaving caused her to press her widespread unmanicured fingertips on the sill again at his going just as she had at his coming, she thought through the glass the list of questions she had run by Harry before he left, that he did not have any way of knowing the answers to but in this situation a friendly nod smile and acknowledgement that the questions are indeed valid and she is not a worrysore of a warty nutcase for wondering the fuck what’s going on and for being mildly annoyed by the fact Mouse is not communicating even though she knows in the hindmost of her whirling brainfissures that young men of that age do not put keeping Mom in the loop of all rolling life-things they are about atop their lists of things to do today. How pompous of any breed of living things cursed with the ability to accept input process the input and shit from their gross bottomholes their news and views of what they think of and know about and consider to be true of every real and unreal poor passing prey they trap-snag and convert by some chew of which there are many kinds also into their input big gaping superwide strongly toothed hoppermaws. The space past the glass hung in the air hollow and empty of Harry; the ground beneath the window began the space all empty of Harry; every boxbottom steel drum barrel bottom car floorboard and even the space in her hollow house began with some real thing at the bottom to stand on and look over the space all around from the safe solid vantage point mortal sentient creatures are saddled with the reality of the fact being they need safety it’s an addiction of a kind it’s monkeys on their collective backs to need safety; an opioid; the need after need for one place to stand after the other; just because something’s not made by human chemists and labeled and proclaimed to be a drug doesn’t mean it’s not a drug. Four hours ago she’d got off the phone with Harry and he’d come and gone and all already he must be halfway home by now. Nora stood at the window overlooking the driveway. I think the same always you know. Always you know I think the same.
Jim Meirose's work has appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including Calliope, Offbeat/Quirky (Journal of Exp. Fiction pub,), Permafrost, North Atlantic Review, Blueline, Witness, and Xavier Review, and has been nominated for several awards. Published books include: Understanding Franklin Thompson (Exp. novel - JEF pubs (2018)), Sunday Dinner With Father Dwyer (Exp. Novel - Scarlet Leaf Press (2018)), Inferno (E-Chap - Underground Voices), Mount Everest and Eli the Rat (Lit. Novels - Montag). Visit www.jimmeirose.com to know more.
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